


Wisdom's Radius - A Riddle of Identity

by DaharMaster



Category: Elder Scrolls
Genre: Gen, Meta (Kinda), Riddle (Sort Of), Some Pretty Weird Shit(TM)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 10:03:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20598947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaharMaster/pseuds/DaharMaster
Summary: I don't know, it's weird. Ostensibly it's a short drabble about Sotha Sil/Seht having an expected unexpected visit with a mysterious figure. Really, this whole thing's a bit of a riddle. It's meant to be read heavily between the lines, it's meant for every aspect to be questioned, to be analyzed and read into. I like it, I don't know if anyone else will.





	Wisdom's Radius - A Riddle of Identity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TitaniumVulpes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TitaniumVulpes/gifts).

It was precisely midcycle of the 169th rotation of the fifth auxiliary temporal cog when the Stranger arrived upon the Radius. It just so happened that this, by chance, coincided with the 24th of Last Seed, 2E 484, at least in most temporal indexes.

Had anyone or anything been around to witness the Stranger’s arrival out on the barren and rocky plains of the Clockwork City, it would have seemed not like an arrival at all. There was no glow of a portal, puff of Daedric smoke, or anything to signal that where nothing had been there was now something. The Stranger simply was there where before he had been elsewhere.

For all intents and purposes he looked like a man, likely of Colovian stock, perhaps on the younger side of forty, though his long hair and beard bore hints of grey and there was something about his eyes that seemed older than the rest of him. He wore simple nondescript attire, if a bit worn and dusty in places.

In truth, the only thing that seemed at all noteworthy about him was that every item of clothing he wore was in some way out of place if one looked closely enough. It was a subtly hideous mishmash of styles from all across the span of Nirn and its many ages, no two pieces belonging to the same time and place, and none quite fitting the Stranger either.

His only belongings seemed to be a small satchel slung over a shoulder and a gnarled branch of some strange wood about the length of his forearm that he held tightly in his left hand like a cudgel.

The Stranger raised his right hand to shield his eyes from the harsh light of the Polarized Spherion directly overhead and scanned the plateau he had arrived on. In the distance, though veiled slightly by mirages and heat distortion, approached a tall figure adorned in white robes and a brass crown of sorts.

Standing perfectly still, though his grip on the branch growing somewhat lax, the Stranger watched the approaching figure, his expression inscrutable. There was no mistaking who the figure was by now, of course.

“Stranger, old friend,” Sotha Sil, the Clockwork God, said with a small smile as he strode right up to the Stranger.

“Lord Seht,” the Stranger replied with a slight bow of his head, “It’s been too long. Do you have it?”

Seht extended a gloved hand and opened it slowly, palm up. The Stranger watched carefully and was silent for a long moment.

“I see nothing,” he admitted finally, gesturing to the apparently empty hand, “I suspect there is some hidden wisdom here?”

“There is a difference between knowing and seeing. Just as I know that you will not understand me for I obscure my true meaning in allegory, making true comprehension on your part impossible, I too know there is that which exists outside the range of even my own divine perception. I know it to exist, just as one knows a word erased from a page exists, but I cannot see it in the same way that the missing word cannot be read,” spoke Seht, then paused thoughtfully and added, “I am beginning to sound like my brother. Ayem, I think, would find that troubling.”

“Perhaps,” grinned the Stranger, taking an Unseen thing from Seht’s hand and placing it delicately in his satchel, “But if you ask me, it is your brother who sounds like you.”

At this, Seht did a most unexpected thing. He laughed.

“You are still as I remember you, or perhaps imagined remembering you,” the Clockwork God replied, but the Stranger was already gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to make your guesses about hidden meanings and whatnot, there's plenty of them. I'll do my best to confirm, deny, and hint where appropriate, but don't expect a full explanation. Where would the fun be in that?


End file.
